Now in its 22nd year, the award organised by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals' Community, Diversity and Equality Group, highlights and rewards partnership projects that change lives, bring people together and demonstrate innovation and creativity. One of the profession's leading accolades, the award is open to all UK library and information services and could include collaborations outside of the sector. Recent winners include, North Yorkshire County Council & North Yorkshire Music Zone's 'Library Songwriters: Skipton Rewind Club', Kent Library and Archives 'Making the Difference: Opportunities for Adults with Learning Difficulties' and The City of Edinburgh's 'HMP Edinburgh Library Partnership'

Springer and the Centro Internacional de Matemática of Portugal will work together to publish a new book series CIM Series in Mathematical Sciences. The first book will evolve from the international conference "Mathematics of Energy and Climate Change" which takes place in March 2013 in Lisbon, Portugal. The conference is part of the UNESCO-supported world-wide program "Mathematics of Planet Earth 2013."

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

"Governance and Recordkeeping Around The World is a free newsletter published on a regular basis by Library Archives Canada that explores and highlights issues pertaining to government and recordkeeping practices in the public and private sector. This collaborative tool was designed to help readers stay up-to-date with the latest news, events, trends, products and publications in the field of public administration and recordkeeping" - November 2012 issue now available

An innovative new project is seeking Yiddish-speakers to help create an archive of journals and newspapers from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Two archival repositories - the Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives at Cornell University in the United States and the Modern Records Centre at the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom - are jointly digitizing more than 1,500 digitized pages from journals and newspapers originally written for working-class Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe

A library closed by Lewisham Council has re-opened as a charity run community centre this week, mostly funded by £500,000 of donations from City bankers. Blackheath Village library was one of five libraries to controversially have its funding removed in 2011 as part of the council's £88m Government imposed budget cuts. As the building was leased, rather than owned by the council, it was the only library forced to vacate its premises

Monday, November 26, 2012

Knowing how to respond to water or fire damage is an essential part of emergency preparedness. This free booklet describes a range of salvage options and techniques applicable to library and archive materials and explains how to mount a salvage operation - The British Library

Sunday, November 25, 2012

Bill Dunlap, executive director of the New Hampshire Historical Society, wants to make the past easier to find. So ambitious is Dunlap's plan of digitizing the society's massive amounts of information and that of the state's smaller, local historical organizations, that he dared mention drawing young people away from reality TV. "We're going to put John Stark up against the Kardashian sisters, mano-a-mano," said Dunlap, only half kidding. "At least now we'll have a fighting chance. My predecessor once said that if you're not available on the internet, you don't exist." Following the lead of his counterpart in Maine, Dunlap is raising money for a plan to one day make digital images of everything in the museum and library. That means 31,000 museum pieces, 250,000 photos and 2 million pages of manuscripts. "It's a big undertaking," Dunlap said

The diary of Frederick Parker, who was evacuated to Fakenham from London, tells of his school days, his work as a part-time delivery boy for the local greengrocer and mentions national and local news events of the time. It also gives an account of the bombing of The Salvation Army Temple in Fakenham on May 7, 1941. The diary was discovered by Mr Parker's widow Joan just a few days after he died, aged 85, on New Year's Eve last year. Mrs Parker, 74, a former librarian who lives in Rochester, Kent, sent it to Fakenham Library and it was passed on to the Fakenham Community Archive group. The group has published word-for-word copies of the diary in booklets which are now on sale

Saturday, November 24, 2012

As Edmonton's Library system sets up to celebrate 100 years of operation they plan to take to the streets next year with four new libraries on wheels. The proposal to create the new digital literacy vans is contained within the City of Edmonton's budget, but the library plans to fundraise to get them on the streets. Leanne Drury Melsness, manager of the library's digital literacy initiatives, said the vans would be much more than bookmobiles, but would actual aim to bring all of what the library has to offer to the community. "They would have access to some of EPLs great content and e-content," she said. "Picture, like a pop-up Internet café, or a recording studio or a gaming kit." In addition the library hopes to be able to issue library cards from the vans and would aim to have them at local events and festivals

SAGE has announced a landmark agreement with the Royal Society of Medicine to acquire its journal programme. With immediate effect, 28 titles formerly published by the Royal Society of Medicine Press will be published by SAGE

Adlestrop by Edward Thomas is one of the nation's favourite poems. Written in the heat of battle by an officer who was doomed not to survive the war, Adlestrop idealises the stillness of a railway station in an English country village before the First World War. This podcast will consider the literary and military career of Edward Thomas, the impact of the railways on the English countryside at the start of the 20th century and whether or not 1914 really does represent the culmination of the 'Long Edwardian Summer'. Bruno Derrick has been employed by The Public Record Office/National Archives for 23 years. He has a wide-ranging knowledge of the records of The National Archives with a particular interest in military history and military records, and in records relating to railways, canals and transport

The Friday Brain-teaser from Credo Reference - this week: Birds. "All the questions or answers in this week's brainteaser refer to a bird of some kind. So, if the question was "In Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, which bird was shot by the mariner?", the answer would be "Albatross"." Answers here

1. A cygnet is the young of which bird?
2. The kiwi is used as a national emblem of which country?
3. Is a dove generally bigger or smaller than a pigeon?
4. According to a 1940 song written by Eric Maschwitz & Manning Sherwin, which bird sang in Berkeley Square?
5. What was the title of the first feature film released in 2000 by Nick Park, the English animator who created Wallace and Gromit?
6. Which jazz musician was nicknamed "Bird" or "Yardbird"?
7. Jack Higgins became a best-selling author with the success of which book, written in 1975 and filmed in 1976?
8. Which bird got its name from the feathers that protrude behind its head, resembling quill pens?
9. In target shooting, what bird's name is given to a shot striking the target's outermost division but one?
10. In 1914, who composed "The Lark Ascending", a romance for violin and orchestra?

The Wikimedia Foundation is collaborating with JSTOR, a service of the not-for-profit organization ITHAKA, to provide 100 of the most active Wikipedia editors with free access to the complete archive collections on JSTOR, including more than 1,600 academic journals, primary source documents and other works

The UK National Archives is working with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to transfer and begin releasing colonial administration records, referred to as the 'migrated archives' between April 2012 and November 2013, in accordance with FCO's published timeline on the FCO website. The fourth tranche will be made available in the reading rooms at The National Archives from 30 November 2012. This release will contain records from Ceylon, Cyprus and Kenya

Digital Pioneers is a project to document early innovations in the use of digitization in libraries, museums, archives, and historical societies in the words of the people who were an integral part of it all. Its purpose is to document the experiences of these individuals and also to compile and disseminate learning resources for LIS students and others interested in the evolution of the use and impact of digitization, digital materials and the Internet on cultural heritage institutions. These resources include valuable lessons for those currently in the field and those who will be joining it in the future

Billy Elliot author Lee Hall and Carnegie medal winner David Almond have joined vocal literary defenders after Newcastle council announced on Tuesday that more than half of the city's libraries would be closed. Part of a £90m budget cut that will see at least 1,300 jobs go – and which Labour leader Nick Forbes blamed on a "grossly unfair" cut in its government grant – the measures will close 10 out of Newcastle 18 branch libraries

Canada Post will continue to support Canadian libraries by providing the reduced postal rate for mailing printed library materials by libraries to their users and other libraries. On January 14, 2013, Canada Post will increase Library Book Rates by a weighted average of 4.8%

The merging of fisheries libraries in Nova Scotia and British Columbia is sparking some anger in the rest of the country. Fisheries and Oceans Canada will close most of its nine libraries across the country and split their collections between just two - in Sidney, B.C., and at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography in Dartmouth. A third Library in Ottawa will be reduced in size but retain a physical location. At the same time, the federal department is digitizing its collection to make it available online. That isn't good enough for Quebec New Democrat Guy Caron, whose riding of Rimouski-Neigette-Témiscouata-Les Basques is losing a French-specific library. Caron denounced the closure in the House of Commons as "ideological cuts" by the Conservatives, who he said are trying to "destroy our scientific institutions." Caron said the survival of the library is an official languages issue because it serves the francophone community

It is the legendary comic that is finally about to call it a day after 75 years of entertaining the nation. Now fans of The Dandy will be able to explore the origins of the famous comic in a new display at the National Library Scotland, which has been unveiled just weeks before the iconic title is due to go digital. Rarely-seen original storyboards and drawings from publisher DC Thomson's archive in Dundee have been unearthed for a celebration of one of the world's most successful comics at the Edinburgh attraction. Visitors will be able to inspect second the front cover of the second ever edition, dating back to 1937, see how Desperate Dan's look was based on the comic's first editor, and relive classic characters like Black Bob and Korky the Cat

CRL recently obtained microfilm of the newspaper Al-Tahrir from Cairo, Egypt. Al-Tahrir launched in July 2011, named after Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the Egyptian revolution that culminated in Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak's resignation

On Wednesday, 21st November, visitors to the Wellcome Library website will notice that we've made some changes. We've given the whole site an overhaul, with new branding, a streamlined new design and a lot of new functionality. The Library blog will be fully integrated with the site, and we've made the site responsive so that it should display clearly regardless of whether you're looking at it from a desktop PC, a tablet or a phone. We've also taken the opportunity to cut out a lot of out-of-date content (like most websites, we'd been good at adding stuff over the years, not so good at taking stuff away). We're focusing on making it easier to search everything from one place, using the search box that appears on the home page and in the top right hand corner throughout the site. But if you prefer them, you can still use the old library and archive catalogues

A fiery Jeanette Winterson has called for the hundreds of millions of pounds of profit which Amazon, Starbucks and Google were last week accused of diverting from the UK to be used to save Britain's beleaguered public libraries. In an impassioned speech at the British Library, the award-winning author of Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit said: "Libraries cost about a billion a year to run right now. Make it two billion and charge Google, Amazon and Starbucks all that back tax on their profits here. Or if they want to go on paying fancy lawyers to legally avoid their moral duties, then perhaps those companies could do an Andrew Carnegie and build us new kinds of libraries for a new kind of future in a fairer and better world?" - Guardian

Nature Publishing Group has signed an agreement with Mexico's National Trust of Scientific and Technological Information Resources, which provides researchers and students across the country site license access to Nature. The agreement will provide access to the weekly, international, interdisciplinary journal of science to 72 members including universities, research centers and other institutions of higher education

The Biblio-Mat is a random book dispenser built by Craig Small for The Monkey's Paw, an idiosyncratic antiquarian bookshop in Toronto. Biblio-Mat books, which vary widely in size and subject matter, cost two dollars. The machine was conceived as an artful alternative to the ubiquitous and often ignored discount sidewalk bin. When a customer puts coins into it, the Biblio-Mat dramatically whirrs and vibrates as the machine is set in motion. The ring of an old telephone bell enhances the thrill when the customer's mystery book is delivered with a satisfying clunk into the receptacle below

LISTen: An LISNews.org Program -- Episode #222. "This week's episode starts off with a brief economic discussion and then heads into a news miscellany. Believe it or not, LISTen has now been around for five years as of this week". Previous Podcasts/Programs can be found here

Two departments, the Department for Transport and the Department for Communities and Local Government, have migrated onto the GOV.UK site. In addition, three associated agencies and bodies - the Driving Standards Agency, the Building Regulations Advisory Committee (BRAC) and the Planning Inspectorate - have also moved to the new domain

The Omeka team has announced that a beta release of Omeka 2.0 is ready to download and explore. Omeka 2.0 beta includes many new features for users and developers alike. For users building collections, we hope that the completely redesigned admin interface will make building collections, creating sites, and using Omeka generally to be much easier. For theme and plugin developers, the substantial changes to the core Omeka code should help make your code faster and easier to write, more consistent, and easier to read

In its submission to a government review the Chartered Institute of Library & Information Professionals has stressed the importance of free ebook lending from public libraries. Access to knowledge should not rely on the ability to pay. Charging for ebook lending is a threat to the principal of a free public library service, as ebooks are likely to become the most popular reading format in the years ahead

Saturday, November 17, 2012

The Hidden Collections report shares the findings of a 2010 survey carried out by Research Libraries UK and the London Library, with the technical and marketing assistance of Mimas. The aim of the survey was to gather evidence about the ongoing need for retrospective cataloguing of UK collections, following on from the 2007 RIN report ‘Uncovering Hidden Resources survey. It is now published in interim form, pending any further work to widen the scope to archives and manuscripts, as part of RLUK's Unique and Distinctive Collections project

The British Library, the Intellectual Property Office and six major UK city libraries signed an agreement this week stating their joint intention to establish a national network of services for small businesses and entrepreneurs across the country, modelled on the services offered by the Library's Business & IP Centre

Dental Education in Video is a video encyclopedia of dentistry and dental technique, delivering instant online access to more than 300 high-definition videos featuring world-renowned clinicians and educators. It provides hundreds of hours of demonstrations from American Dental Association-approved content partners, together with interviews and lectures, for students and faculty in dental surgery, medicine, oral hygiene, assisting, and nursing

Springer will launch a new book series in collaboration with the European Association for Predictive, Preventive and Personalised Medicine. The first volume in the series, Healthcare Overview: New Perspectives, will be published at the end of 2012. Approximately three books will be published each year.

Friday, November 16, 2012

This podcast is based on the recently published book which tells the story of the author's grandmother and nine young men from the four families. They were all served as junior officers and between them fought in all the major battles of the British Army on the Western Front from early 1915 onwards. The story is told through a family archive of diaries, letters and photos which have been extensively researched and annotated. The talk will also refer to the sources in The UK National Archives that were used to research the characters and the battles in which they fought. Charles Fair is a military historian and battlefield guide, and Marjorie's War is his first book. He is a member of the Western Front Association, the Gallipoli Association, the Salonika Campaign Society and the British Commission for Military History. Having served as an infantry officer in the Territorial Army, his main area of research is the TerritoriaI Force during the Great War. In his day job he works for a professional services firm in London

Books at JSTOR is an initiative to publish scholarly books online as part of JSTOR. Working together with partner publishers, libraries, and scholars, we are developing a new online offering for current and backlist books that we hope will meet the needs of these groups better than anything available in our community today

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Oxford University Press has announced the re-launch of Oxford Handbooks Online, now featuring coverage that has grown to 14 disciplines (translating to about 300 handbooks and 10,000 articles in total) - a significant expansion of the original platform first launched in the not-so-distant 2009 with just four subject modules, which included Business & Management, Philosophy, Political Science, and Religion. The new platform - designed (and referred to by OUP) as a publishing "program" - enables articles to publish immediately after passing peer review, which, according to OUP's press release, will deliver new scholarship to those who need it faster and more efficiently

The holdings of the National Coal Mining Museum for England Library have been added to Copac. The NCMME Library has been described as a Collection of National Importance by the British Library. The collection is made up of material from many individuals as well as material from the collections of the former nationalised coal industry along with the libraries of Institutes of Further Education that offered mining-related courses. They hold runs of important journals as well as HM Mines Inspectors Reports from c1880, HSE and BCURA publications and a good selection of mining-related fiction, and continue to add to the collection by purchase and donation

This summary report is the output of a large scale survey of journal readers about journal content discovery conducted during May, June and July of 2102. While statistics and analytics can tell us some of this information, there are many gaps in the knowledge that these can provide which we have endeavoured to fill by asking readers what how they discover journal content

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

In today's podcast Patrick Hennessey, an ex-Grenadier Guards, takes over to talk about his experiences of being a soldier, which was the influence behind his two books The Junior Officers' Reading Club and KANDAK, and discusses the appeal of writing and reading about war. Also featured in this podcast is A. L. Berridge talking about the Crimean War, which she used as the backdrop in her book Into the Valley of Death. She is followed by a reading from Crusade, read by the author Stewart Binns before he discusses writing about the Crusades. Next, Harry Sidebottom answers questions on his Warrior of Rome books including the latest and fifth book in the series The Wolves of the North. Then, the author of War Memorial, Clive Aslet, discusses the importance of remembering the lives of soldiers who have fought and died for their country

TSO (The Stationery Office) has been awarded a five year contract to publish the London, Edinburgh and Belfast Gazettes online and in print. The Gazettes are the official journals of record of government. They contain statutory information, notices and advertisements setting out the business of government and putting it permanently on the public record

Innovating e-Learning 2012: Shaping the future is the seventh in the series of JISC e-Learning Programme online conferences brings together delegates from further and higher education to explore and develop the use of technology to enhance learning and teaching - 19-23 November, 2012 - UK

BiblioBoard Web is part of a larger eco-system for the sustainable curation and distribution of history. We are in a private beta phase for our Web product. You will find multi-media Anthologies, which are curated collections of books, images, documents, artifacts, sounds, and video around a specific theme. Anthologies differ in size and scope, but generally include dozens of books and other pieces of media related to a topic. We like to say that BiblioBoard is where historical discovery meets pop culture and a short tour of the site will show how varied these historical collections can be - from Ancient Egypt to 90's Punk Rock. New Anthologies are being added by our partners every day, so keep checking back to see the latest creations

The Kansas State Library has launched a social-media campaign against what it says are unfair practices to keep bestselling electronic books out of the hands of libraries and their patrons. Library officials have started a page on Facebook, www.facebook.com/thebig6ebooks, "bringing attention to the titles publishers are refusing to sell (as) e-books to libraries, price gouging or limiting checkouts per copy purchased."

Newcastle council's plans to close "the vast majority" of the city's libraries have been branded "wrong and immoral" by furious authors including Philip Pullman, children's laureate Julia Donaldson and Anne Fine. The council is looking to cut £7m from its library budget, meaning that most of the city's 18 libraries could be under threat. Local reports suggest that only the city centre library will be safe, with Newcastle's other branches all at risk of being shut down or passed to volunteers. An announcement detailing the planned changes will be made next Tuesday, but a spokesman for the council said this morning that "some libraries will go and some will stay open"

The California State Library has announced a new tool for public libraries. The Emerging Story of California Public Libraries is a document designed to help libraries reframe their stories of why they are still relevant in today's highly technological society

The Association of Research Libraries has published Changing Role of Senior Administrators, SPEC Kit 331, which focuses on the professional, administrative, and management positions that report directly to the library director (or, in some ARL member libraries, the position that serves as the representative to the Association), positions that have not been examined by a SPEC survey since 1984. This SPEC Kit explores the responsibilities of these positions, and the skills, qualifications, and competencies necessary for these administrators to successfully lead a transforming 21st-century research library. The publication looks at whether and how position requirements have changed in the past five years, whether the number of direct reports has changed, whether these administrators have assumed new areas of organizational responsibility, and how they acquire the new skills to fulfill those responsibilities

Routledge has announced that from 2013, it will be publishing two new literary studies journals: Green Letters: Studies in Ecocriticism and The Seventeenth Century. Green Letters explores the relationships between literary, artistic and popular culture and the various conceptions of the environment articulated by scientific ecology, philosophy, sociology and literary and cultural theory. The Seventeenth Century is established as the leading forum for interdisciplinary approaches to the period, and complements these with stimulating specialist studies on a wide range of subjects

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

The latest version of Discovery, our new catalogue, is now available so you can search our collections more easily. The new version includes an enhanced search results page which displays the covering dates, references and former references of records searched for and we have increased the number of items you can add to the shopping basket. In the last release we added more browse functionality to Discovery, so that you can browse our collection by hierarchy or by reference. A large number of bugs and issues have also been fixed to improve your experience of using our new catalogue for your research. You can find more information about Discovery by reading our frequently asked questions and by reading our blog post on how we're developing Discovery - UK National Archives

LISTen: An LISNews.org Program -- Episode #221. "This week's program has a bit of an essay on economic concerns that talks about shooting for "doing less, better" instead of "doing more with less" while also presenting a news miscellany. Reference is also made to a disturbing attack on members of the news media in Oakland, California". Previous Podcasts/Programs can be found here

Library Ireland Week 2012 is the 7th year of Library Ireland Week which celebrates and highlights the role of libraries, librarians and information professionals. Library Ireland Day will take place on the Wednesday 14th November

Alexander Street Press is broadening the reach of scholarly video in libraries across the United States with a giveaway of 52 subscriptions to Filmakers Library Online. One library from each state - plus the District of Columbia and Canada - will be selected to receive a year free access. University, research, and public libraries that are new to digital video are encouraged to apply and find out firsthand why vivid streaming video delivers data in a way no other medium can

John Wiley & Sons, Inc. has announced a new collaboration with TED, the non-profit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading, to create and supply instructor materials for their recently launched series of "TED Studies"

Emerald Group Publishing Limited has announced its collaboration with CLADEA (the Latin American Council of Schools of Management) to publish their official journal Academia Revista Latinoamericana de Administración. Starting in 2013, Emerald will publish three issues of the journal annually, both online and in print, including contributions in English, Spanish and Portuguese

Above the Fold is a Web-based newsletter published by OCLC Research. It has been developed to serve a broad international readership from libraries, archives and museums - October 3, 2012 - Vol. 5, No. 36 now available

Monday, November 12, 2012

Tales from the Terminal Room - October 2012, Issue No. 104 is now available. Tales from the Terminal Room is an electronic newsletter that includes reviews and comparisons of information sources; useful tools for managing information; technical and access problems on the Net; and news of RBA's training courses and publications. Editor: Karen Blakeman. Published by RBA Information Services

ScotlandsPlaces is a website that allows users to search across different national databases using geographic locations. The user is able to enter a place name or a coordinate to search across these collections or they can use the mapping in the website to both define and refine their search. The results pages provide the data relevant to the search conducted, from each of the project partners

The Royal Library opens an experimental service, which will be available until the end of 2014. The offer is primarily directed at scholars, but is open to everybody. Books from the National Collection of Danish books, is normally only available for use in The Royal Library's reading room. But now, a digital copy can be ordered with just a few clicks, and at no charge. The project has to purposes:

- to make older Danish prints available for everybody;
- to minimize wear and tear on the original.

Books, that have been digitized, is available online for everybody, so that everyone can have access to their own digital copy of Danish classics, such as the printed works H. C. Andersen or Søren Kierkegaard

A new academic seminar series organised by a group of historians of medicine based at London universities and hosted by the Wellcome Library will start to meet in 2012-13. The series will be focused on pre-modern medicine, which we take to cover European and non-European history before the 20th century (antiquity, medieval and early modern history, some elements of 19th-century medicine). The seminars are open to all

In October 2011, The National Archives took on additional leadership responsibilities for archives in England. One year on, this talk will explain our vision for leadership, review our achievements to date, and explore some of the challenges ahead. Isobel Siddons recently joined The National Archives as Head of Engagement. Her team supports public sector archives, including those belonging to local authorities and universities. Her core interest is in organisational change, and in developing participatory approaches to managing and using collections. Isobel qualified as an archivist in 1991 and worked in a range of archives including The Wellcome Trust, The National Gallery and Marks & Spencer. In 2004, she joined the Museums Libraries and Archives Council to work on archives sector strategic development. In 2007 Isobel became MLA's programme manager for 2012, developing and managing cultural programmes for museums, libraries and archives as part of the Cultural Olympiad. The most high profile of these programmes, Stories of the World, worked with nearly 70 museums to embed youth participation and new ways of working with collections

The next International UDC Seminar entitled "Classification & Visualization: Interfaces to Knowledge" will take place in the Koninklijke Bibliotheek in The Hague, on 24-25 October 2013. This is the fourth in a series of International UDC Seminars devoted to advances in documentary classification research and their application in a networked environment. The objective of this conference is to explore cutting edge advances and techniques in the visualization of knowledge across various fields of application and their potential impact on developments in the more main stream bibliographic and documentary classifications

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Project Blue Sky allows instructors to search, select, and seamlessly integrate Open Educational Resources with Pearson learning materials. Using text, video, simulations, Power Point and more, instructors can create the digital course materials that are just right for their courses and their students. Pearson's Project Blue Sky is powered by Gooru Learning, a search engine for learning materials

2013 sees two big moves to support online publication as the version of record. To allow articles to be fully cited from the minute they are published online we are replacing traditional print pagination with the continuous publication model, which means articles will be complete with the full citation details from first publication - Royal Society

Work is currently underway to transition the ArchiveGrid database of archival collection descriptions from a subscription service to a free service on a new interface developed and managed by OCLC Research

Angry campaigners, who were told that a Victorian building they wished to run a community library from would be turned into flats by their millionaire Oxford College owners, have written an open letter urging them to reconsider and will be taking their fight to the streets. Members of the Friends of Kensal Rise Library have written to the warden and fellows of All Souls College in Oxford condemning the plans which will see the majority of the building in Bathurst Gardens, Kensal Rise, given way to property developers

The Library of Congress, on December 6 and 7, will host the first International Summit of the Book, a gathering of leaders in academia, libraries, culture and technology to debate and discuss the powerful and crucial form of information transmittal: the book

Now entering its sixth year, Open Access Week is a global event bringing together the academic and research community, helping to inspire wider participation in online academia and learn about the potential benefits of Open Access. As usual Royal Society Publishing will be participating in this annual event by allowing free access to all our content. In addition, this year our free access period will be extended until 29 November 2012

Research Councils UK has announced the details of the block grant funding mechanism that it is introducing to aid implementation of its policy on Open Access that was announced in July and is due to come into effect in April 2013. The block grants, which will be provided by the Research Councils from April, are to fund article processing charges. Research Councils are committed to providing funding for APCs in the long term; however, funding levels are only specified at present for an initial period of two years from 1 April 2013 to 31 March 2015.There will be an interim review in 2014 to consider how the system is working and to determine the level of funding to be provided in the next Spending Review period post 2014/15

Friday, November 09, 2012

The Friday Brain-teaser from Credo Reference - this week: Apples. "All the questions or answers in this week's brainteaser concern apples or an apple" Answers here.

1. The Big Apple is a nickname for which particular American city?
2. Which scientist supposedly developed his general theory of gravitation from seeing an apple fall from a tree beside his Woolsthorpe home?
3. In a figurative sense, what is an apple-polisher?
4. What is the popular name for the visible projection at the front of the neck formed by the thyroid cartilage?
5. "Love apple" is an old name for what fruit (which is often regarded as a vegetable)?
6. "Apples and pears" is Cockney rhyming slang for what?
7. What is the meaning of the phrase "apple-pie order"?
8. Who wrote the 1929 play "The Apple Cart": was it George Bernard Shaw, Eugene O'Neill or Noel Coward?
9. "Apple Islander" means someone born in which country (or who has come to regard it as his or her home)?
10. Name one of the two men who founded Apple Computer, Inc.

Thursday, November 08, 2012

Secret London, an exhibition featuring the best of the entries for The Serco Prize for Illustration, opens at London Transport Museum on 13 November 2012. This year's theme is Secret London and there will be 50 works of art on display, each showing a hidden aspect of the city. The illustrations have been chosen from entries submitted by professionals and students for the The Serco Prize for Illustration 2012 - a competition open to leading illustrators throughout the world. This is the third year that Serco have sponsored the awards and exhibition. Entrants were asked to create an illustration which depicted little known or unusual aspects of the capital's history, culture, characters and communities - past or present. 13 November to 10 December 2012

The Intellectual Property & Science business of Thomson Reuters has announced an expansion of its longstanding relationship with the Tunisian National University Center of Scientific and Technical Documentation which gives university researchers and administrators access to Thomson Reuters InCites

SAGE has announced a change to its licenses that will provide university alumni with access to the content hosted on the SAGE Journals, SAGE Research Methods and SAGE Knowledge platforms through their university library. All alumni registered with subscribing or purchasing libraries will be able to access all SAGE products including over 645 scholarly and professional journals at no extra fee

Nature Publishing Group has introduced the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license on its 19 NPG-owned academic journals. From December 2012, the CC BY license will be available to authors choosing open access publication options in these journals, in addition to the two non-commercial Creative Commons (CC) licenses currently on offer. This follows NPG's introduction of a CC BY license option on Scientific Reports in July 2012

The call for papers is now open for the 2013 NAG Conference. As always the conference will include a mixture of plenary sessions and workshops delivered by practitioners from a variety of backgrounds in the library and information profession, chosen to stimulate lots of thoughts and generate discussion. We will look at the hot topics of the moment in the world of library acquisitions and cast a glance to the future, looking at where the profession may be going in the next few years. There will be opportunities to share your own experiences, whilst enjoying the unique networking opportunities offered by NAG not only with colleagues in both public and academic libraries but also with library suppliers and publishers

Preservation Assessment Survey Workshop - 30 January 2013 - London, UK. Designed for library and archive staff, the workshop introduces the Preservation Assessment Survey methodology and demonstrates the benefits of carrying out a survey. No previous knowledge of preservation is required. Participants will learn to plan a survey; select a statistically valid sample; assess the condition of collection items; identify factors affecting their preservation

The last time this column took a peek at the East Cleveland Library board, it was not a flattering sight. This time, unfortunately, will be no different - and that's a shame for residents who love their library and want it to become a strong, stable institution...

The annual Primary Source Awards, started in 2010, recognize librarians, teachers, and researchers who use or promote the use of primary source materials in new and innovative ways via access, research, and teaching. Now more than ever, primary source materials are readily available and accessible; the Primary Source Awards help bring attention to these vital resources. Nominations, including self-nominations, will be accepted until midnight, January 31, 2013. Winners will be announced in April 2013 during CRL's Council of Voting Members Annual Meeting. Both awardees and nominators of the awardees can choose between a gift certificate for Powell's Books or an iPad

An Introduction to Art and Design Reference Resources - National Art Library, Victoria and Albert Museum, London - 10 December 2012. A workshop for those new to the world of art librarianship, or those wishing to update their skills in art and design enquiry work. The day features presentations from leading art librarians, who will provide up-to-date information on the key print and electronic resources and strategies for effective enquiry work. There is a significant practical element to the day, allowing delegates to put into practice the skills and knowledge acquired on the day. There is also a behind-the-scenes tour of the extraordinary collections in the V & A National Art Library

Established 37 years ago, and formerly named 'Yoga Today', the intention of Yoga & Health has always been to translate Yoga from its classical Indian roots into 'Yoga in today’s world'. Over the years, we have built an excellent reputation as Europe's leading independent monthly Yoga magazine. We aim to inspire and inform our readers on all aspects of traditional and modern Yoga practice. Each month we feature practical articles from leading Yoga teachers, inspirational spiritual leaders, and health care professionals. There is something of interest for everyone, regardless of your age or experience, whether you are trying out Yoga for the first time or have been teaching for many years. Yoga & Health also offers well researched advice on healthy living, with seasonal vegetarian recipes, tips from complementary therapies, Yoga retreats, holidays, as well as reviews of latest books, audio visual material, and product reviews, including many special reader offers

John Wiley & Sons, Inc., has announced the launch of Molecular Genetics & Genomic Medicine, a new Wiley Open Access journal. Under the leadership of Editor-in-Chief Dr. Maximilian Muenke, the journal will provide rapid dissemination of high-quality research in all areas of human, medical and molecular genetics

Maney Publishing has confirmed a new partnership with The Australasian Universities Language and Literature Association to publish its journal which from 2013 will be entitled The Journal of Language, Literature and Culture. Previously known as AUMLA and publishing twice a year, next year marks several firsts for this journal in its 60th consecutive year of publication. It will be published online as well as in print. The full back run of issues will be hosted on the same platform. It will publish three issues per year

findmypast.co.uk has just published millions of pages of historical newspapers from across England, Wales and Scotland. This collection contains local newspapers for the period 1710-1950. More than 200 titles are included and they will be adding more all the time

Macmillan Dictionaries will no longer appear as physical books. The final copies are rolling off the presses at this very moment, and from next year, Macmillan Dictionary will be available only online. Since its launch in 2009, Macmillan Dictionary Online has seen explosive growth and will now fully replace the print version in a transition that, according to Editor-in-Chief Michael Rundell, can only be a positive one. With this migration to new media, Rundell believes that Macmillan's dictionaries have found their ideal medium: "The traditional book format is very limiting for any kind of reference work. Books are out of date as soon as they're printed, and the space constraints they impose often compromise our goals of clarity and completeness. There is so much more we can do for our users in digital media."

Monday, November 05, 2012

Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum, although partially closed until April 2013 due to renovations, has recently launched its digital collection. "Rijksstudio," the 125,000 work collection, provides access to some of the museum's most famous paintings (including Rembrandt's "The Night Watch," and Vermeer's "The Milkmaid"), and also allows users to explore lesser known objects (like an early 20th century airplane). Users can build their own collection by choosing works or cutting out details from works and adding them to personal Rijksstudio collections, or sharing them on Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest

Underfunded libraries, schools and non-traditional organizations that provide educational services to children are invited to apply to receive one of three Coretta Scott King Book Donation Grants. Applications will be accepted through Jan. 31, 2013, and winners will be announced in late February

The University of Chicago has been awarded a £52,247 grant from the British Library's Endangered Archives Programme, funded by Arcadia, for the digitization and preservation of 60 rare and endangered Urdu language periodicals. With the grant, digital images of magazines and journals will be produced at the Mushfiq Khwaja Library and Research Centre in Karachi, Pakistan, and made available through the University of Chicago Library and the British Library, giving scholars access to a significant archive of the most important Urdu periodicals from the 19th and 20th centuries

An evening reception at King's Maughan Library formally marked the transfer of Canning House Library to the College. Described by the historian Hugh Thomas as,'one of the jewels of Latin American Studies in England', Canning House Library possesses 50,000 volumes, which will constitute a major boost to the study of Hispanic and Lusaphone languages, culture and history at King's. Robert Hall, Director of Library Services, said: 'We are delighted that Canning House Library's vast and historic collection is coming to King's. The breadth of its Latin American literature is remarkable, covering film, the visual arts, music, archaeology, the cultures of Latin America's indigenous people, history, politics and geography.'

Letters which tell the story of a remarkable friendship that inspired one of Scotland's greatest modern writers have been acquired by the National Library of Scotland. George Mackay Brown - the so called 'Bard of Orkney' - was 64 when he first met Kenna Crawford who, at 26, was less than half his age. That was in 1986 and over the next few years around 100 handwritten letters and several poems were sent by Mackay Brown to the woman who was his last muse. He credited her with inspiring a new period of creativity after a time when he had written very little

The 2013 National Forum Committee seeks proposals for high quality pre-conferences, concurrent sessions and poster sessions for the 16th annual LITA National Forum to be held in Louisville, Kentucky, November 7-10, 2013

Felicity Cobbing, Curator at the Palestine Exploration Fund, gives an overview of the rich history of the organisation and its work as well as an introduction to the archived artefacts housed at their offices in London:

The Chatham House Online Archive: publications and archives of the Royal Institute of International Affairs from 1920 will be a searchable research database comprising approximately half a million pages of research, expert analysis and commentary in the form of briefing papers, special reports, pamphlets, conference papers, monographs, the journal International Affairs and the magazine The World Today. It will also contain transcripts and audio recordings of Chatham House meetings to provide a valuable insight into the thoughts of key figures in international affairs such as Mahatma Gandhi, Winston Churchill, Willy Brandt, King Hussein of Jordan, François Mitterrand and Henry Kissinger

Europeana will soon be launching its latest virtual exhibition – a collaboration with the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, The European Library and Europeana Regia. The exhibition features books that once belonged exclusively to emperors and kings. It showcases the most significant manuscripts from three collections: Carolingian Emperors, whose dynasty began with the crowning of Charlemagne and laid the foundations for modern day France and Germany; the library of the Aragonese Kings of Naples which includes many royal commissions from various artists of the time, first Catalan and then Italian copyists and illuminators; and the library of French King Charles V and his family, which became a model for royal and aristocratic libraries in the 15th century

The World Newspaper Archive, a partnership of CRL member libraries and Readex (a division of NewsBank), has reached a milestone of 2,500,000 scanned pages across the four available modules. Member investment in this successful collaborative digitization program has enabled CRL and Readex to make 300,000 issues from more than 200 newspapers widely available electronically

The UK National Archives, the Friends of The National Archives and the Federation of Family History Societies have embarked on a joint project to digitise and transcribe the MH 47 record series. The series is a key collection of First World War records, including records of around 10,000 men who did not wish to see Army service, for a variety of reasons

Do you remember life without Facebook and Twitter? Were you watching a television set 30 years ago when S4C was launched? Can you remember listening to important news from the front line on the wireless during Second World War? Have you seen Morse Code being used to Tweet? Through the eyes of one main fictional character, Bryn Jones, Dot Dot Dash: Communicating in Wales exhibition at the National Library of Wales between 3 November 2012 and 14 September 2013 will focus on the collections of the National Screen and Sound Archive of Wales, displaying iconic audio and visual clips from each decade of the past century. It will trace some of the major milestones in the history of communication in Wales that have changed the way we live our lives today

Library and Archives Canada has announced the release of its latest podcast episode: Faces of 1812. Professor Michael Eamon joins us to talk about Library and Archives Canada's exhibition, Faces of 1812, which commemorates the War of 1812. He provides details on his work as curator, on some of the items included, on how the exhibition came about and on why the War of 1812 is significant to all Canadians

The UK Government's copy of the Scottish Independence Referendum Agreement is on public display in the reading rooms at The National Archives. This landmark agreement between the UK and Scottish governments which grants Holyrood the power to hold a referendum on Scottish independence, was signed on 15 October by Prime Minister David Cameron, First Minister of Scotland Alex Salmond, Secretary of State for Scotland Michael Moore and Deputy First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon

The National Archives' Office of the Federal Register has launched new interactive Electoral College maps on its official Electoral College website. The public can actively participate in the electoral process by predicting electoral votes for the upcoming Presidential election and sharing their prediction results through social media. In addition, the Federal Register has posted a new video on how the Electoral College works.

Mirela Roncevic writes: I am in the midst of developing a library technology report for ALA TechSource (a unit of the publishing department of the American Library Association), due out in the Spring of 2013. The focus: ebook platforms in libraries. As I am amassing information about various products from publishers and aggregators on the specifics of each platform, I've decided to open it up to a broader audience in the early stages of the writing process and obtain feedback from all who may benefit

SimpleTCT is a simplified management environment designed to assist in textual comparison. Users can display the contents of .rtf files, define themes, highlight passages and add personal notes as required. A document may then be exported containing all of the selected passages, organised thematically, situated alongside the relevant notes

The Encyclopaedia Britannica App, now available in the Windows Store, provides access to the entire encyclopedia with a sleek and engaging interface, rich illustrations, and special features such as Link Map, a graphical browser that connects interrelated articles in a fun and interactive way. This new digital version of the encyclopedia, the latest in a long line the publisher has created over the past two decades, exemplifies the direction the company is taking today," says Britannica senior vice president Gregory Barlow. "We're mobile, we're digital and we're making knowledge available to people whenever and wherever they need it."

Friday, November 02, 2012

The Florentine Codex, a unique manuscript dating from 1577 preserved in the Medicea Laurenziana Library in Florence, is for the first time available online in digital format, the Library of Congress has announced. The codex, one of the most important sources for the history of pre-Columbian and early post-Columbian Mexico, is among recent additions to the World Digital Library, the Library of Congress' flagship international digital collaboration

John Wiley & Sons, Inc. has announced a partnership with The Sheridan Press, print and publication services provider to the STM and scholarly journal community. Through this partnership Wiley's online only journal titles will be available as Print on Demand copies, delivered through Sheridan's production system. Starting in January 2013, a total of 145 online only titles will now be available in print via this solution

Based upon studies of thousands of couples, this podcast explains how, when and where people in past centuries married. Family historians just starting out will find advice on where 'missing' marriages are most likely to be found, while those already well advanced in tracing their family tree will be able to interpret their discoveries to better understand whether their ancestors actions and choices made them exceptional or normal for their day. Rebecca Probert is Professor of Law at the University of Warwick, and the author of Marriage Law and Practice in the Long Eighteenth Century: A Reassessment (Cambridge University Press, 2009); The Rights and Wrongs of Royal Marriage (Takeaway, 2011); The Legal Regulation of Cohabitation, 1600-2010: From Fornicators to Family (Cambridge University Press, 2012) and Marriage Law for Genealogists (Takeaway, 2012). She has appeared on both TV and radio to discuss historical and contemporary trends in marriage

Since its establishment in 1928, the library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has grown into a world-renowned institution dedicated to documenting the history and development of motion pictures as an art form and an industry. The library is open to the public and is an important resource for scholars, students, researchers and industry professionals. Today, researchers, students and film aficionados worldwide can begin to explore these rich, unique collections online through the Margaret Herrick Library Digital Collections

Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy has invited ten of the best UK poets writing today to take part in an unprecedented series of residencies at the University of Cambridge, supported by Arts Council England. Duffy will launch the project, Thresholds, tonight at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge as part of the University's Festival of Ideas. The launch will also celebrate the new commitment to work in partnership between the University of Cambridge, Arts Council England, Cambridge City Council and Cambridgeshire County Council that aims to enhance the impact of their shared investment in arts, museums and libraries across Cambridge and the County. Further, the Thresholds project demonstrates the quality, ambition and reach of activity to be supported through the University of Cambridge Museums’ Connecting Collections programme

Reuters: Voters will be allowed to use Memphis library cards as photo identification in the November 6 election, the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled on Thursday in a blow to Republicans who wanted only ID issued by the federal and state governments to be allowed. Tennessee is among a number of states that have passed laws requiring voters to show photo ID. Republicans say the laws are needed to deter fraud, while Democrats say they are aimed at depressing turnout by voters who typically support their party

Researchers, students, genealogists and members of the public now have access to historical Whitby newspapers through an online database offered by the Whitby Public Library. Complete issues are available for the Whitby Gazette (1862-1912), Whitby Chronicle (1857-1912), Whitby Gazette and Chronicle (1912-1942), Whitby Weekly News (1955-1965) and the full run of the Whitby Free Press (1971-1996). Users can view the newspapers through their web browser or they have the option of downloading and saving the images to their personal devices. The Whitby Newspaper Index is also available to assist users in searching for news articles in all of Whitby's newspapers, including Whitby This Week. The digitization of Whitby's historic newspapers was made possible by the assistance of a generous anonymous donor. The newspaper database will supplement the Whitby Historic Images database, which contains more than 6,000 images of Whitby from the 1840s to the present

The October 31, 2012 edition of the Scholarly Electronic Publishing Weblog from Charles W. Bailey, Jr. is now available. It provides information about new works related to scholarly electronic publishing, such as books, e-prints, journal articles, magazine articles, technical reports, and white papers

Europe PubMed Central has been launched. As announced in July, the European Research Council becomes the third European funder to join UKPMC, following Telethon Italy and the Austrian Research Fund. As a result of this participation, the 18 existing UK and European funders agreed that the UKPMC service should be rebranded as Europe PMC by 1 November 2012

Information Professionals 2050: Educational Possibilities and Pathways, a book that includes the thoughts and ideas of some of the brightest leaders of the information and library science world, is now available in both paper and e-book form at lulu.com. The book is a compilation of position papers written by these leaders and initially prepared and presented at a special two-day symposium and conference on June 4 and 5, 2012 at the William and Ida Friday Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Thursday, November 01, 2012

Ingram Content Group Inc. has announced that Abingdon Press has expanded its relationship with Ingram and has added sales and distribution services through Ingram Publisher Services to grow the reach of its Christian publishing program to more book buyers in the U.S.

King's College London releases Measuring the Impact of Digital Resources: The Balanced Value Impact Model by Simon Tanner. "This document is an output from an Arcadia funded research project. It draws evidence from a wide range of sources to provide a compelling account of the means of measuring the impact of digital resources and using evidence to advocate how change benefits people. The aim is to provide key information and a strong model for the following primary communities of use: the cultural, heritage, academic or creative industries"

The California Digital Library has announced a new print-on-demand and ebook distribution/sales service for books and journals published in eScholarship, the University of California's open access publishing platform. This service will enable publishing units within UC to develop hybrid OA business models for their publications. Books and journals enrolled in this service will be freely accessible via eScholarship while simultaneously offered for sale in POD and ebook formats via self-branded ecommerce storefronts and through retail affiliates such as Amazon.com

The editors of Library Journal need your help in identifying the emerging leaders in the library world. Our twelfth annual round of Movers and Shakers will profile 50 or more up-and-coming individuals from around the world who are innovative, creative, and making a difference. From librarians to vendors to others who work in the library field, Movers and Shakers 2013 will celebrate the new professionals who are moving our libraries ahead.The 2013 Movers and Shakers will be highlighted in the March 15 issue of Library Journal